The third eye: how to see in the absence of light | Katarina Stephan | TEDxColumbiaUniversity
135,354 views |
Katarina Stephan |
TEDxColumbiaUniversity
• April 2018
In this motivational talk, Katarina Stephan delves into her world as someone who is visually impaired. Even with this disability, Stephan has triumphed through life as a student, ballerina, and emergency medical technicin (EMT). And she is only 20 years old. With full forces ahead, she aspires to be the world's first visually impaired surgeon.
Katarina Stephan was born with persistent hyperplastic primary vitreous, a congenital anomaly of the eye that ultimately led to the surgical removal of her left eye. She wears a prosthesis for cosmetic purposes. Two years ago, she trained with the Salzburg Ballet Company, a professional ballet company in Austria. Thereafter, she returned to America and worked as a teaching assistant in cardiothoracic surgery at Stanford University School of Medicine for the Cardiothoracic Surgical Skills Internship. She is currently majoring in Neuroscience and Behavior as a premedical student at Columbia University in New York City.
She enjoys spending her free time as an EMT with Columbia University Emergency Medical Services (CU-EMS) and acting as a user interface for visual prostheses that have the capacity to restore vision to the blind. Katarina dreams of becoming a one-eyed surgeon.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx